2015 was the worst year ever for e-readers

e-Reader innovation has ground to a halt and no new technology has been developed since 2013. This was the worst year on record in terms of overall sales. Many analysts have proclaimed that only 9 million units have shipped this year, which is a decrease from the 12 million dedicated e-ink devices were sold in 2014 and a far cry from 20 million units that were sold in 2011.

The e-reader industry is crashing

There are many reasons why major companies like Amazon and Barnes and Noble only shipped one new e-reader this year and Kobo debuted twonew models. It is the same reason why there were no new 13.3 inch e-readers in 2015, although Onyx and Pocketbook both teased they had one in development, but they are nowhere to be found.

I think the main reason why the e-reader industry is in a state of decline is due to the market becoming super saturated between 2009 to 2012. Basically anyone who wanted an e-reader went out and bought one during that time frame. There is little reason to invest in a new model every year, because there is no quantum leaps in technology, its been utterly stagnant.

The second reason is primarily attributed to e-Reader ownership hitting an all time low. Pew Research conducted a study and found 19% of adults reported owning an e-reader, such as a Kindle or Nook.This is a sizable drop from early 2014, when 32% of adults owned this type of device. It seems as though people have shelved their readers and switched to smartphones and tablets.

Pew found that 45% of U.S. adults own a tablet – a substantial increase since they began measuring tablet ownership in 2010. Then, only 4% of adults in the U.S. were tablet owners. They also stated that 68% of adults now have a smartphone, nearly double from 2011 when only 35% of adults had a smartphone.

The Wall Street Journal also reported this summer that the smartphone continued to be the most adopted piece of technology to read e-books. Their premise derived from a recent Nielsen survey of 2,000 people who found 54% of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time, which is a 24% increase from 2012.

There are only a few e-reader companies left standing

When Good e-Reader first started reporting on the rise of e-readers and e-books in 2008, the world was great. Within a few short years there were dozens of e-reader and e-paper companies looking to make their mark on the industry.

In 2015 there are only a few companies left standing. The only company who is active in e-paper is E-Ink Holdings. Pixel QI, LG and Bridgestone all abandoned their e-paper ambitions a few years ago due the perceived lack of demand. Meanwhile in the e-reader sector dozens of companies went out of business in the last few years, such as Cool-ER, Entourage, Hanvon, iRex, Greenbook, Spring Design, Kyobo and dozens of others.

There are only two major companies left standing in the e-reader space and against all odds they have managed to flourish.. Amazon has the largest market share and they account for 75% of all e-books sold in the US, while in the UK the figure is closer to 95%.

The second major global player has to be Kobo. The company has been on an expanding rampage, trying to dominate markets before Amazon can swoop in. One of their biggest secrets to their success is getting their devices in bookstores, where their prospective customers are. Michael Tamblyn – CEO of Kobo told me on a few occasions that they focus on bookstores because their product seems more organic and wholesome, instead of being sold at a big box retailer, where technology is often cold and impersonal.

What is an e-reader discussion without the Barnes and Noble Nook? The company released a new waterproof e-reader this year, the first new model since 2013.

Barnes and Noble has lost money on the Nook aspect for the last four years straight. In total, they have lost over 1.2 billion dollars on having too much inventory and selling too few units. They thought they could solve this problem by contracting out the tablet design to Samsung.

The main problem with the largest bookstore chain in the United States is they utterly refuse to enter into new markets and sell digital content. This not only hurts them, but leaves some of their customers in a quagmire. For example, digital library distributor Overdrive sources their digital magazine collection and student newspapers from from Barnes and Noble. Because B&N only sells it in the US, it limits Overdrives capability to sell this kind of content in other markets. It also forces them to find another partner just to sell magazines in countries like Canada or the United Kingdom.

While Amazon and Kobo dominated the global stage, there are only a handful of key regional players that have any sort of sales record and established customer base. One of the most well known is Tolino, which comprises of an alliance of telecom and tech companies that wanted to develop e-readers and open a digital bookstore to prevent Amazon from dominating the German market. Netherlands based Icarus has a fond place in geeks hearts because they were one of the first ones to develop open Android based e-readers, that allow you to install apps just like you would on a smartphone and tablet. Pocketbook tends to dominate Eastern Europe, while Energy Sistem does well in Spain and finally Onyx Boox who primarily focuses on the lucrative Chinese market.

2016 will be better

I am hoping there will be a number of new technologies that will debut in 2016, that will help revitalize the e-reader industry.

In June 2015 Freescale announced the IMX 7 dual core processor, which will be incorporated into most new e-readers in 2016. This chip was designed by both e Ink and Freescale. It was chiefly developed to give you a better experience using Carta, Regal or Pearl screens, but was primarily made for whatever new e-paper tech e-ink comes out with in 2016.

E-Ink should also announce Regal 2 in 2016, which will work in conjunction with the new Freescale processor. It will finally make Android driven e-readers more viable because refreshing speed will be increased by a few hundred percent, which will make complex animations, such as animated page turns more viable. Look for this to be announced at SID Display Week.

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about electronic readers and technology for the last four years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the Huffington Post, CNET and more. Michael frequently travels to international events such as IFA, Computex, CES, Book Expo and a myriad of others. If you have any questions about any of his articles, please send Michael Kozlowski an email to michael@goodereader.com

I am waiting for the new tech of 2016 to add to my current eink collection. I hope these new displays can be made on a flexible substrate. There are many ereaders with broken displays on ebay and a flexible screen could solve that problem.
I wonder if the new displays are planned to interchange with standard IPS and AMOLED panels. That would allow these panels to be easily integrated into common tablets with minimal difficulty.

Albert

Those charts are really funny, and do make one laugh. According to them, 92% of adults own cellphones, but only 68% own smartphones. That means that nearly 27% own ….. flip phones only? In the US? Hahahaha……

As to the decrease in dedicated e-readers sold, blaming technology is *really* missing the point. The reason for the decline is right in front of you in those charts. Even suggesting that instant page turning, or color e-ink would revert that is ridiculous.I own a Paperwhite 3 and absolutely love it, reading on it every day. Would I be inclined to buy a new model if it had instant page turning or color e-ink? Nope.

Guest

Really informative article, thank you. I’m looking forward to Regal 2. Still hoping for color e-Ink in the near future as well.

Steven Capsuto

Who cares? The goal of marketing e-readers wasn’t to sell e-readers: it was to sell e-books. That’s where the profits are. If someone already has an e-reader, they don’t need another one, but they’ll keep buying e-books. If someone reads on their phone or tablet, the distribution companies are still selling e-books. This is a nonsensical concern.

You want to know why e-reader sales are down?
Readers are tired of being chained to a single source of books, and nook and Kindle want to push their LCD model. Anyone who would read on LCD will buy a tablet, and there is nothing a nook tablet or a Kindle tablet offer that can’t be found on better tablets. They need to focus on e-ink, and improving the e-ink experience (not the display, but the device driving the display). My best e-reader is something out of China. It’s an e-ink tablet, on which I have installed Kobo, nook, and Kindle apps, along with Aldiko. It’s everything I’ve wanted in an e-reader, including physical page turn buttons. It’s buggy, so it could be better, but – e-reader companies in the States don’t want to make what I want to buy. So I import it from China and cope with bugs.

eReader sales are probably down because there really isn’t a need to upgrade a whole lot. Upgrade from a non-lighted model to a lighted model, and that’s really just about it. I haven’t even updated my eReader. I’m still using a second generation Nook, although I am looking to upgrade to a lighted model in 2016.

New Hope

Thank you for the reply. The problem I am worried about could be limited to the Kindle 3 and might not exist on the newer touch models. I am interested to learn more about the problem. I bought a second DXG because I was afraid mine would break since I read with mine every afternoon.
My nephew had a Kindle 3 keyboard and the screen developed a diagonal split appearance to the display where one portion of the display worked and the other portion was frozen. The display did not feel cracked as a window pane might feel cracked except the appearance was just as though there was a crack. I have also read of others at mobileread forums having a similar experience and seen many being sold on ebay for parts because of a broken display. I have only been interested in the K3G because of the free 3G and have not followed newer Kindles or the other brands so don’t know if they have a similar problem with a ‘cracked’ appearance.
If your driving tests did not break the newer displays then perhaps they are now made with the unbreakable flexible substates. I have read news about them being possible to produce and not realized they are now being used on the newest ereaders.
If there are some ereaders that are now based on flexible substrates then I expect there are some still with the fragile substrates except now I am uncertain as to what readers use what types of displays.
I read a description for a Boox for sale in China warning the display was fragile and thought they were all still the same:

Note:

The LCD screen is very fragile so that a little external force can broke it. (like key hits, someone sit on it)

The last year that e-reader technology changed is when Regal, and Carta came out in 2013. From 2014 to 2015 is when the decline started.

mike carrington

I own a kindle keyboard, dx, and a paperwhite. I keep the old ones because they have text to speech and at the same time easy reading, so I don’t need a new one. The paperwhite is for on the go. If they added audio to the paperwhite or voyage I would upgrade.

Eric Fowler

Exactly. There’s really no technological increases sufficient enough to warrant upgrading eReaders like there is for tablets and laptops. The front light was big, the increase to 300ppi, maybe. They can add other bells and whistles to try to get people to upgrade. But are those upgrades going to make the reading experience better? Anything higher than 300ppi really wouldn’t make a big difference considering that under magnification it looks very close to the printed word. A larger screen would mean a lower resolution. Unless there is a big increase in technology, color eReaders aren’t anything great, with their washed out color. Companies are focusing on the wrong thing. The should be focusing on making the ebooks that they sell be readable on the all devices, not just locked into their reader. Make their ebooks less expensive and more inclusive to everyone.

Pixilicious

Perhaps if Kobo had sales distribution in America, they might have some sales here. It’s kinda hard for someone to buy your product when it’s not available to buy … and, no, a foreign website isn’t distribution that’s likely to generate a whole bunch of sales. MAYBE the problem with sales in the U.S. & UK is that Amazon is the only company slinging it’s wares AND folks (like me) have vowed never to buy their POS products again.

The funny thing is, Kobo’s got a great product that Americans can’t buy because it has awful distribution and B&N has great distribution of an awful product line that nobody wants to buy. You’d think that they’d be smart enough to figure that situation out, wouldn’t you?

One thing is for sure, though, when you’ve got one company with a stranglehold on the market, nobody’s doing much advertising AND without that, you won’t many sales.

The concept of e-ink devices isn’t dead but the brains of those selling them certainly are.

Pixilicious

Competition drives technology and without the former you won’t get the latter. When ATT had their monopoly of the telephone, we had a huge ATT building in every city in America. They were each grand designs of architecture BUT telephonics hadn’t advanced In 40 years and it took 2 weeks to get a phone installed. Why? No competition meant no need to innovate OR give the people what they wanted…faster service. And those grand buildings? They were monuments to a nation’s stupidity

Eric Fowler

There’s really no innovation that would make an eReader better. You are still reading a book in e-ink and a faster processor isn’t going to make that better. More than 300ppi really isn’t going to make it better. Some people want a larger screen, that may make it better, especially for those with poor eyesight. Apps? Why? You are reading. Internet? Why? You’re reading. If someone wants those things, they need to buy a tablet (and catch hell trying to read it in bright lighting). An eReader does what it is supposed to do, and it does it very well.

Paul Berger

I like very much the introductory picture. Where is this place? Scotland?
And are those people relatives ? 😉